Originally Posted by
mschwett
i vaguely recall the moped days. my older brother got one of those honda ones. but i don't recall the factors that led them to fall out of favor. was it safety? reliability? pollution? ......
The key issue was safety. Both for the users and everyone else. That, and the impossibility of enforcing traffic laws.
Since no license was required, there wasn't any leverage. Ultimately they became the vehicle option for those who lost driver's licenses for DWI.
And as things happen in the USA, once they started getting bad press, everybody piled on; too noisy, smelly, polluting, stored indoors causing fire hazard, and of course the guy who killed somebody's grandma.
Again, I believe in e-bikes as long as they're pedal assist vs. throttle. Visit NYC, where they're very common, but you'll rarely see anybody pedaling. Because they didn't buy a bicycle, they bought an unregulated motorcycle.
BTW - there's plenty of room regarding the phase out speed for assist. My point is that there should only be 2 classes: e-bicycles and e-motorcycles, with rules that match.
Thought, we're already seeing some issues. Since there's no meaningful regulation, there's also barely any quality control. Nothing like UL standards on the sizeable batteries. Since it's a practical necessity to bring bikes indoors in NYC, we're starting to see some serious apartment building fires.